Timesavers allow me to Work only One Hour Each Day in my Vegetable Garden

A couple years ago I had no interest in starting a vegetable garden. My schedule wouldn’t allow it. I recall having to get out of bed before the sun was up just to beat the morning traffic. Then I spent 9 hours at work before facing the afternoon rush traffic to return home.

It would be impossible to grow a garden. If I did at that time, I’m sure it would have been overrun by weeds and pests. I wasn’t prepared to devote my time and effort.

It was only recently that I decided to give gardening a second thought. This was brought on by the high food prices that I faced (and I’m still facing) at the supermarkets.

I needed a real way to decrease my spending without having to cut back on the things I enjoyed. So that’s where the idea of owning a backyard vegetable garden came about.

Now after working 5 days a week and having to face traffic, the last thing I wanted to do was digging and weeding in my free time. (This was how I learnt to garden at school).

I just didn’t have the energy or the zeal.

It then occurred to me, hard labour in the garden was relevant 20 years ago (while I was learning agriculture at school). A lot has changed since then. Technology has come a long way.

I also made a list of all activities that I considered time consuming:

Clearing the site

Digging

Pest Control

Weed Control

Watering the plants

Then I looked for timesavers that solved these problems.

The area I had in mind for the garden was overrun by weeds. Clearing it was the first step. So after a little research I found a couple methods of clearing and controlling weeds that didn’t require a lot of my labour. Click here to read more.

After clearing the soil I now had to solve the problem of digging (or tilling). That’s when I discovered the rotavator. Here’s a video of a rotavator in action:

The soil in a small garden can be tilled in about 1 to 2 hours. Isn’t this time frame better than 2 weekends of digging?

Companion planting also saved me a lot of Hours

I found a list companion crops. This list helped me determine what vegetables I should be planting side by side (and which combination to avoid.

At present I’m happy with my garden. You can say it takes care of its own self. When I just started I did spend time and effort to set it up. But looking back, the early sacrifices were worthwhile.

These days I play more of a monitoring role. When I get home from work I go to the garden to ensure that the drip irrigation system is working; that the plastic mulch is still clamped to the ground and that the animals and pest are being managed.

I rarely ever spend more than an hour in the garden and the timesavers I use is largely responsible for this.